Ghost of Christmas Past

My dear husband is prisoner at his office Christmas party for lunch today. Bwahahaha. On one hand, I miss having lunch with him, but on the other hand I have a whole heart full of gratitude that it's him and not me.

When I worked at the bank Christmas was a HUGE deal in our department, thanks to the big boss (the Chief) who just loved the holidays. We had a Christmas Fun Committee which consisted of one or two permanent members and whoever else had been hired since the first of the year. I was one of the permanent members. We decorated our floor like mad, complete with a huge live tree decorated with enough lights to go well beyond fire safety. Granted, the first year I was there the two model employees who where in charge of acquiring our tree got it from "some guy" they noticed selling trees on the side of the road who gave it to them free, then they trimmed it by cutting off the top. It was the ugliest tree I've ever seen. We posted pictures of the Topless Trust Tree in the break room every year after, in honor of how far we'd come.

Most years the Fun Committee declared a 12 Days Of Christmas. One year that involved 12 days of people bringing food each day. One year we made stockings for everybody and delivered "goodies" each day. One year we had a calendar of activities including an art contest, assorted word puzzles, Christmas Egg Hunt, carolers, etc. It was always quite festive. And then there was the party.

The Christmas party was usually the one time during the year that we catered in something nice. Except for the one year when the Chief decided we were having Cajun Christmas that would consist of homemade gumbo and rice. And nothing else. He refused to let me order any optional theme-related main dish or any side dishes. He and one other lady in the office each made a big pot of gumbo and, in his words, "They can eat it or just go back to work."

Did I mention that the Chief loved the holidiays so long as everything was on his terms?

After the meal we always had the Santa gift game - Dirty Santa, Stingy Santa, whatever you want to call it. I can't tell you the rules because the Chief changed them every year, sometimes in the middle of the game. One year the final rule was, "Everybody pass your gift to the person on your left. It's done! No more swaps!" Only the bravest souls would choose to open the gifts from the Chief and his band of merry nutcases, easily identified as the ones sadly wrapped in whatever had been handy - newspaper was a classy option. We saw brown paper bags taped up, paper from the copier taped over it, and one year there was one wrapped in what I believe was carpet scraps. You just never knew what was in there. There were singing Christmas trees and assorted other signing critters that had been purchased the hour before at Walgreens (this was a tradition for several years). There were oddball things like holiday chip clips and gags like reindeer that pooped jellybeans, and random re-gifts from the year before. One year there was a $50 gift card to Parker House. The next year it was a live mouse.

Yep. I said live mouse.

And that wasn't the first time a live animal had made its way to the party. There are legends from the years just before I went to work there about rats and turkeys. Live ones.

The first few years I really loved Christmas at the bank. Even with the wacky Santa game, it was fun. Over the years the Chief got crazier little by little, and eventually it got old. He sucked the fun right out of it. His attidude turned into, "As long as I have fun, it doesn't matter if anybody else does!" This from the man who once rigged the Secret Pal activity by secretly replacing all the names in the hat with his name, so that he was EVERYBODY's secret pal, and then made everybody swear to secrecy about whose name they drew. The last few years I pointed out that it wasn't the staff's party, it was the Chief's party. This year I get a break, no office festivities. I'm glad. I need the break to rebuild my Christmas Fun spirit.